Saturday, 11 April 2015

PODCAST REVIEW: Life after Serial

Continuing the republication of this year's podcast reviews - this article was originally published in the Weekend section of The Tribune on January 30. For more, visit http://www.tribune242.com/photos/galleries/sets/weekend/

SERIAL – a podcast exploring a single
criminal case – was very much the springboard last week as we took
a first look at the world of podcasts. So this week we kick off with
the podcast site that Serial emerged from, This American Life.

If you're into podcasts, you may very
well know of This American Life already. It's often the most popular
podcast in the US, with about one million people downloading it each
week.

It is also a weekly radio show
broadcast to about 2.2 million listeners on stations around the
country.

Its website is organised brilliantly.
They openly say that sometimes it's hard to describe what's going on
with the show. They're usually built around a theme, they're often
about everyday people, but the site includes a favourites page,
handily bookmarked at the top, to give an ideal place to dive in and
get a feeling of what it's all about. You can also access it through
apps on iPhone or Android. Some of its old stories are even being
turned into movies.

It's hard to pigeonhole exactly what
they're doing – and that's exactly part of the podcast's charm.

The BBC teamed up with the British
Museum for this, a 100-part radio series, each episode lasting about
15 minutes and picking an object that illuminated something of the
history of its time. British Museum director Neil MacGregor is an
enthusiastic and knowledgeable host, and the objects run all the way
from a Stone Age chopping tool to a modern day credit card. Think of
it as an audio tour through a museum as big as the world, all
helpfully archived on the BBC website at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/

Diners' Debates

Closer to home, a recent addition to
the Bahamian thinkscape has been the Diners' Debates, hosted at
Mojo's restaurant and featuring some of the smartest minds on the
islands. Each debate takes a different subject, experts present the
starting points for the debate and discussion ensues in a relaxed and
convivial atmosphere. Nicolette Bethel has been recording and
streaming the debates – which have covered subjects such as
immigration policy and the effects of climate change – and they are
available at
http://en.1000mikes.com/app/scheduleEntry.xhtml?scheduleEntryId=122578.
Worth noting is that it can be hard at times to make out what's being
said but then this is a chance to listen in rather than the event
being designed for broadcast. Catch a taste of it online, then head
along to the next one to sample the real flavour of it all.

UPDATE: The next debate is on the Federal Republic of The Bahamas: Emancipation from Nassau, and will take place on Thursday, April 16, at 7pm. Find out more about the debates on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/896388900405578/

Welcome To Night Vale

Last time, I briefly mentioned Night
Vale, but outraged fans of the podcast picked a bone or two with me
since. I'm still not convinced by Night Vale but that's not because
it isn't well made. It's a very polished recording and knows exactly
what it's doing. It masquerades as a public service radio station
reading out notices for the town of Night Vale. However, the town is
one of those poor mid-Western towns plagued by everything that could
ever go wrong in B-movies. So among the notices for church fairs and
pot lucks are mentions of unfortunate cattle abductions by aliens or
warnings of weird goings on in the basement of the local crazy
professor. This is the land filled with Men In Black, vaults filled
with X Files and the place where you'll find the odd socks lost in
the laundry. I still think it's odd for the sake of being odd but the
brave of heart can find out more at http://commonplacebooks.com/